A Finer Focus: The Sum of All Fears...and I'm Not Talking About the Book

Forty years ago this month, a landmark treaty was signed. The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With decades passing, India, North Korea, Israel and Pakistan have all "joined the club" - so to speak - in that, although not having signed the NNPT, but they've acquired (albeit dubious with North Korea) the ability to blow things up with nuclear means.

So, where does this leave us? Well, since the thaw of the Cold War, the balance of power that held things together since WWII has shifted into asymetrics. We sit back, watching a few conventional wars, but there are several - like nine - countries that have the ability to cause mass tragedy with the push of a button, few of them checking the other, save a faint application of Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD in mind. This doesn't even consider the prospect of terrorism. The issue is real and may not affect us as much as it may affect our children. Religion, the environment, the grab for natural resources, and plain human error are have to be considered variables.

The library holds a solid collection of books relating to the topic of Nuclear Non-Proliferation. The subject heading that will gather relevent titles is "Nuclear nonproliferation." You might also consider taking a look at what our periodical indexes/databases have to say about the topic by going - with library card number and PIN - to EBSCO.